GEOGEAPHICAL DISTRTBUTION OF MYTHS, 355 



lost and famislimg among many islands^ but of sucli a fountain 

 lie found no trace. Then he came to Bimini^ and discovered 

 Florida on Pascua Florida, (Easter Sunday), wherefrom he 

 gave the country its name.^ 



To proceed now to the story of the Tail-Fislier. Dr. Dasent, 

 who, in his admirable Introduction to the Norse Tales, has 

 taken the lead in the extension of the argument from Compa- 

 rative Mythology beyond the limited range within which it is 

 aided by History and Language, has brought the popular tales 

 of Africa and Europe into close connexion by adducing, among 

 others, the unmistakable common origin of the Xorse tale of 

 the Bear who, at the instigation of the Fox, fishes with his tail 

 through a hole in the ice till it is frozen in, and then pulls at it 

 till it comes off, and the story from Bornu of the Hyaena who 

 puts his tail into the hole, that the Weasel may fasten the 

 meat to it, but the Weasel fastens a stick to it instead, and the 

 Hyaena pulls till his tail breaks ; both stories accounting in a 

 similar way, but with a proper difference of local colouring, for 

 the fact that bears and hyaenas are stumpy-tailed.^ 



A similar story is told in Reynard the Fox, less appositely, 

 of the Wolf instead of the Bear,^ and in the Celtic story re- 

 cently published by Mr. Campbell, it is again the Wolf who 

 loses his tail. In this latter story, by that kaleidoscopic ar- 

 rangement of incidents which is so striking a feature of My- 

 thology, the losing of the tail is combined with the episode of 

 taking the reflection of the moon for a cheese, which occurs in 

 another connexion in Eeynard,'* and is apparently the origin 

 of our popular saying about the moon being made of green 

 cheese. 



" He made an instrument to know 

 If the moon shine at full or no ; 

 That would, as soon as e'er she shone, straight 

 Whether 'twere day or night demonstrate ; 



' Gomara, Hist. Gen. de las Indias ; Medina del Canipo, 1553, part i. fol. ssiii. 

 Petri Martyri De Orbe Novo (1516), ed. Hakluyt ; Paris, 1587, dec. ii. c. 10. 

 Galvano, p. 123. 



2 Daseut, ' Popular Tales from the Norse ;' (2nd ed.) Edinburgh, 1S59, pp. 1. 

 197. ^ Grimm, ' Eeinhart Fuchs,' pp. civ. cxxii. 51. ■• Id. p. cxxvii. 



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